On Thursday, April 7, 2016 the Statesman published an article on an Officer that was put on paid administrated leave for body slamming a Middle School girl.
Officer Joshua Kehm was being video taped while he was trying to restrain a Rhodes Middle School student from San Antonio Texas. In this video you hear some kids laughing and some kids shouting with fear. It shows that he slams her to a brick walkway, handcuffs her, then leads her away. All of this happened because two girls were getting verbally aggressive and Khem was trying to stop it because it was getting pretty serious.
12 year old Janissa Valdez explained to reporters that she wasn't trying to fight with this girl she just wanted to talk alone with her. Valdez does not even remember being slammed to the ground. She thinks what Officer Khem did was and i quote "wrong"
Gloria Valdez, Janissa's mother says, "You could just hear where she hit the ground. And its nothing but concrete cement." "She wasn't moving. She was just knocked out. I wanted answers and nobody could give me answers."
Officer Joshua Khem declined to make a statement.
This whole article has me mixed on who's side I'm on, Yes is was wrong that a big man such as himself slammed a little girl to the ground like that. It's bad enough that Police Officers are already targeted to be "JERKS" "BAD PEOPLE" "CROOKED" and then something like this happens it makes them look even worse and of course no one is going to side with them. I also feel its kind of suspicious how they only recorded the part where he slammed the girl to the ground, usually in these "fight videos" they record the confrontation and none of that happened. Kids now and days believe that all Police Officers are bad, that they're out to get them. Maybe it was wrong of him to handle that situation as he did but maybe also nobody really knows the full story on what happened that day. He was the only adult around and perhaps the kids planned something or maybe not. An Officers job is to protect maybe that's what he was trying to do, and maybe that's not how he intended it to go. I do feel like this situation was handled properly by the head Police and Administrators by putting him on leave until they investigated more of the conflict that happened, and gave justice to the person that truly deserved it. Again i couldn't take a side exactly i could just state what i thought about this article.
http://texaslifestyle22.blogspot.com/2016/04/texas-officer-appears-to-body-slam.html
ReplyDeletehttp://state28.blogspot.com/2016/04/unnecessary-use-of-force.html
ReplyDeleteAlyssa Rangel published a post on April 7, 2016 titled, "Texas officer appears to body-slam middle-school girl in shocking viral video." In this post, Alyssa explains the story of a Texas officer, Joshua Khem, who was trying to restrain a middle school student in San Antonio who was apparently being verbally aggressive with another student. Alyssa explains that during this process the officer was video taped, which showed him slamming the student onto a brick walkway, then proceeding to handcuff her, and then taking her away. This student was 12 year old, Janissa Valdez.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Alyssa that Police Officers are being targeted a lot more in todays' society than ever before. Officers are being watched more closely than ever before, and being scrutinized by citizens about every detail, no matter what it may be. I also agree with Alyssa and what she says about the videos that are recorded during these particular situations. In most of these situations when there is a video recorded, and with officers being attacked more by the public, it seems that the whole story isn't shown directly. Instead, it seems that in the showing of these videos, it only captures the confrontation and the outcome, which usually ends up being bad for one of the parties involved. In this case, it would be officer Joshua Khem.
With that being said, I DO NOT agree with how the officer handled this situation. This was a 12 year old girl for goodness sake! There was no reason for the officer to body slam this girl. Joshua Khem, being an officer, should know the rules about the appropriate use of force, which I don't believe that he used. I do not need the full video clip to know that this officer handled this situation poorly, and I am glad that he was put on leave by the head administrators, although in my opinion I think he deserves much more.